Cispri News

With an eye to future resource extraction in Alaskan waters, Clay Maitland, Founding Chairman of the North American Marine Environment Protection Association (NAMEPA), has announced the program for its Environmental Intelligence in Maritime Senior Leadership Roundtable. The Leadership Roundtable will be held in Anchorage, Alaska on August 8th, 2013, at the Captain Cook Hotel. The caucus will begin at 1:30PM with a keynote delivered by Congressman Don Young and will focus on “Drilling Preparedness in the Arctic”. Recent attempts to proceed with drilling in the Arctic have been met with challenges. Federal agencies, as well as private industry, have been working to better understand and meet these challenges.

T&T BISSO announced an exclusive cooperative services agreement with Cook Inlet Spill Prevention and Response (CISPRI). Based in Nikiski, Alaska, CISPRI is a comprehensive standby oil spill response cooperative whose mission is to provide immediate response capability to its member companies. The agreement provides a unique platform for OPA 90 related salvage, emergency lightering, firefighting and oil spill response services in Alaskan waters and further strengthens the planning and response posture for tankers and non-tank vessels operating in the area.

T&T Bisso Response recently deployed emergency response resources to serve the Cook Inlet and Alaska areas. T&T Bisso displayed its emergency response capabilities by conducting equipment exercises in Kachemak Bay in partnership with Cook Inlet Spill Prevention and Response. The emergency response equipment will remain permanently based in Alaska. Multiple emergency response assets were deployed during the week-long exercises attended by representatives of Prince William Sound shippers, the U.S. Coast Guard and local citizen advisory councils.

The U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Detachment in Kenai is investigating a minor crude oil spill that occurred this morning on the Dillon oil and gas production platform located in Cook Inlet. The source of the spill on the platform was a cracked fitting on the discharge side of a high-pressure pump used to re-inject crude oil into the well. The exact size of the spill is unknown, but reports from Unocal officials indicate that the maximum size of the spill was 2,310 gallons. Most of the spilled product did not enter the waters of Cook Inlet, but was contained on the platform. It is not known how much crude oil entered the water. Unocal, in conjunction with CISPRI, conducted over flights of the area and also dispatched the spill response vessel Sea Bulk Montana to the spill location.